Musings of a 26 year old anxiety sufferer

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I suppose I should start from where I left off. It’s been over a year since my last post. Since the last post, I have continued on in the same anxiety daze as I have been for a long time, with mental health decreasing steadily. I was put in a horrible situation in October last year which resulted in me shutting out completely, and becoming a hermit. As a naturally social person this was quite difficult, however, it was the best decision I could make at the time. I made the right steps to deal with the aftermath of the situation, but the hermit status remained. The idea of recreating a social circle was more intimidating than it had been previously.

I had made a Twitch account to watch some people that a work colleague suggested to me. After a couple of months of watching, I figured that streaming games would be a good way to slowly introduce me back into social life gently. I mean, I was sitting in my room and playing games anyway, so why not stream them and potentially make friends, right? So I started streaming. With the help of a work colleague and her friends on Twitch, I started meeting people (online) and making friends. Through these friends, I found my way to the NZ Twitch community, where I met some of the best people I will ever meet. I went to a meet up of North Island Twitch streamers and got to meet quite a few people that I had chatted to online. After the meetup, there was a couple that I met that I kept closely in touch with, and came down to stay with for a long weekend to get out of Auckland for a little bit. I had been ‘planning’ to leave Auckland and move to Christchurch and had never actually done anything about it except tell people of the ‘plan’. When I came down for the long weekend, my friends asked how my moving plans were coming along. It was at that point that I realised that I wasn’t actually that committed to the move to Christchurch. I told them that I hadn’t done anything about it, no savings, no job hunting, no looking at how much rent would be, or moving costs. It was at that point that they offered me the option of moving in with them. This instantly struck a chord with me as they live much closer to Auckland than Christchurch, and it was a safe house that I knew people in. On the bus home, I even checked into a few jobs available in the area and applied for one. I had planned to find a job, then move down.

I had many conversations with my boss regarding working remotely, which would allow me to move and still maintain my existing job, meaning that I could move sooner. I waited and waited, plus followed up as much as I could without feeling like I was becoming a bother, however, the answer was always that it was with IT, and no estimation on when this would be possible. It took a rather large break down and concerns from the BEST friends for me to stop waiting for an undetermined amount of time for something that might not even happen. They told me that they were going to come up for Armageddon, and take me back with them and that I could find a job when I was down here as it would be easier for me to go to interviews if I lived here.

So here I am, in a new city, far more relaxed that I can remember being in Auckland for a long time. I have been here for almost 2 weeks, still without a job. Having suffered with a large number of things in Auckland, I find that there are FAR fewer things here that cause me issues than I anticipated, and the major thing is only the lack of a job. I have applied for several jobs while here, and have an interview for one next Tuesday. The other jobs I have applied for haven’t been as fortunate, however, I wasn’t expecting to just come down and be able to waltz into a job straight away. What the interview means is that I have a lot of prep work to do, and have to remember to remain calm.

Building my life here is exciting, and something that I look forward to giving updates on. For now, I have more jobs to apply for, and interview prep to do! I will try to keep this up to date with my new life!!

It’s days like today that make you really step back and realise how much you take for granted the ‘boring plan Jane’ days. The days where things are smooth. The days where things are good. Days like today show you how strong you are and reiterate just how far you have come in your journey to happiness.

Today was a shit fight. Work was messy and INSANELY busy. People from the past show their heads. People who you value dearly do something stupid and end up in hospital.

Work: working in the telco industry is constantly busy. People are always getting connected, people are always moving, people are always cancelling, and faults always occur. Being someone who cares for other is difficult when you deal with an industry where 3/4 of the time there are issues. Whether is be a fault, or delays in the connection, these are things outside of our companies control. Then there are the human errors that happen that cause issues for customers, and those are the ones that hit the hardest. There was a VERY difficult situation I had to deal with today in relation to someone having fibre installed at their property and there being issues with the fact that the previous tenants fibre order hadn’t been cancelled by us, resulting in the connection being made on the wrong customers account along with the programming and provisioning being done on the wrong account. This is while fielding calls from 472929746382 other people who all have something that they require. On the positive side, I have a job interview in 3 days for another internal company that I used to work for a couple of years ago.

Past Faces: there are things that happen in your life for one reason or another that stop you from contacting people, or them contacting you. I had someone contact me today asking about my past in gymnastics and whether their child was too young, and how it woulda with their aged child, and where I would suggest they go in their city. Don’t get me wrong, I answered all their questions with honest answers, and promoted the fuck out gymnastics as I am a FIRM believer in the power of gymnastics for not only fun reasons, but the fundamental movements that it teaches that don’t seem to be discovered by children today with all their iPhones and tablets. I remember when I was a primary school and intermediate, we played outside on the field. We ran and played on the monkeybars, flipped upside down, jumped off the seesaws, and it seems kids today are doing less of that. ANYWAY. I am a bit triggered that I haven’t heard from them in a while and they they message me asking about gymnastics.

CURRENT PEOPLE: this ties to my last blog of You Can’t Save Everyone. There was someone I value dearly who went through a REALLY rough patch a few weeks ago and got to the point where we were seriously concerned about them hurting themselves. They lashed out and said some really nasty stuff to me about myself, but I understand that this was the headspace that they were in and totally not meant personally. Since then I messaged them at least once a day to check up and see what they are doing, and was ghosted (and still haven’t heard from them up to today) after a couple of weeks of messaging and getting the ‘seen’ treatment, I stopped messaged due to destruction of my heart. Today I was added back to a Facebook group I had left because said person had been messaging one of the other people in the group and ended up sending a VERY concerning message. After intense investigation we managed to establish that they had take a FUCKING SHIT LOAD of pills, and one of the persons other friends had found the person on their deck surrounded by pull bottles, blood, and vomit. We managed to get police and ambulance to the persons house and they are safely in hospital now. This DESTROYED me because I had spent a solid 2 weeks messaging and getting no response.﻿

So today was an absolute out the gate, next level, shit fight from start to finish. This is where I came to the realisation that I need to appreciate every day. No matter house ‘ordinary’ it was, because those are the days that once appreciated, can be turned into extraordinary and eventually being great days.

With the amount of mess today, it’s only 8:53pm and I am already in bed. So I shall fall into a slumber now.

Anxiety takes you to daaaark places. So as an anxiety sufferer, I feel it’s my duty to help those in need, in the hope that one day they will help someone else who is in need, or even me when I am having a difficult time.

I was in a situation a couple of weeks ago where someone near to me was in real trouble mentally and emotionally. I pulled ALL resources I had, and found someone able to take me and collect this friend. We went to shisha, got burgers and some drinks, and sat at the beach talking, with the sound ocean ring through the darkness. While at the beach, I got a notification of someone posting on Facebook and checked to see what was happening. It was a veeery dark post from someone else reaching out for help. This person in based at the other end of the country, so all I could offer was support via private message. So while with two people at the beach, cheering one of them up and shooting shit, I was messaging this other person at the same time. Here is where it got sticky. The person I was messaging was way down the tunnel, with no possible sign of a light. In this situation I had resources available from the online variety as I could not be there in person. I sent through links to websites she could go to, gave her every exercise I know of to help calm down and take her mind off of what is going on, and reminded her of how beautiful and loved she is. And no matter what I said, or resources and help I provided, her thought and mood didn’t change. This fucking destroyed me as I had failed to ease the pain and hurt she was feeling. It made me realise that you will never win everyone, and not everyone can be saved by me.

Since then, I have been handed a new contract that is $1 LESS per hour than what j am currently on, and steps me DOWN in what I do, making me wonder what I have done to be in this situation. So the job hunt will be on.

I haven’t been having any luck on the love life front (including intimacy or fucking), and that’s a real kick in the teeth. I am left with the feeling of complete failure as a person. First: I wouldn’t ease someone’s pain and make them feel better, second: I have been demoted for no reason or explanation, and third: single and loveless.

I sit here right in this moment wondering WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! What did I do that was so bad to be here? Where to from here? How can I make things better? Yet at the same time the conflict comes in where I know there is nothing wrong with me, and I cannot shake the negativity feeling.

Sometimes those who are there for others are hurting, sometimes they need help, and most of the time they will never ask for help. But remember that there are people there to help you.

A lot of people have said that 2016 was the worst year in a long time. And up until several weeks ago I agreed. So you may asked what happened a few weeks ago that changed my mind. Well, I started to think about what had happened over the year, and how things were dealt with. And the thing I came to remember is that there are always two ways to look at situations. The first being focusing on the negative. For instance, this year has been the WORST anxiety on record in my entire life. The second way of looking at things is from a ‘what did I learn’ point of view. With regards to this year being a giant anxiety ass fuck, I can look back at the baaaaad episodes and go “I learned so many new coping methods for crisis episodes, I learned who are the best people for me to talk to when I feel crisis coming, I have finally found a cocktail of meds that is doing the trick”. Because if I had not come to thinking of the amount of things I learned this year, I would not be in the comfortable situation that I am in now. I was walking home from the city last night (out an hours walk) and it gave me time to recap over the past year. At first while walking I was angry because all of the taxis were busy. But once I started walking, I calmed down and was able to recognise that the weather was calm and warm with a gentle breeze, the walk is along the waterfront and safe, and it gave me time to think.

When you live with anxiety it’s really fucking easy to let the negatives overthrow you thinking and make you forget the positives that you have experiences. This year I have survived two redundancies, I have become part of 2 new Facebook communities of amazing people, I have met people that I know will be in my life for years to come and constantly bring smiles to my face, I have finally become comfortable with throwing the family book that I had closed into the dark abyss.

This year has so much potential. There is always a big thing about New Years resolutions, and I find that I choose these grand resolutions that are never fulfilled. So this year I set an achievable resolution and that’s to gain 5kg. This is a daunting task with weight issues, but is definitely something that is manageable and can be done.

Last night was spent at a meet up for one of the Facebook communities I have become part of for a New Years party. Normally my anxiety would have prevented me from putting myself in a situation where I had only met 3 of the people before, but in this case I am working on outing myself in situations that will push myself out of the comfortable norm that I am used to. And I am pleased to say that it was the best night out I have had with a bunch of strangers ever. There were so many lovely people, drinking games, selfies, introductions, cuddles, and just all around amazing environment. I am so glad I went, and look forward to going to many more meet ups and building solid friendships with the people I meet.

Christmas was not spent with someone else’s family, but instead with my own built ‘family’ or amazing friends, in Tokoroa. Normally I spend Christmas with resentment buried deep inside as I see happy families doing things with each other, exchanging gifts, and appreciating their biological relationships, that I don’t get to feel or have the legitimate connection with. Christmas 2016 was the best Christmas ever. Just a group us in Tokoroa. Hanging out, drinking, and eating. We have also discussed this becoming an every year tradition and I would be over the moon if this is the reality.

For now I shall get back to watching movies with Husuband, and will attempt to write each Sunday this year.

When the world is spinning at 100 miles an hour makes it really hard to remember to stop and do something different to distract yourself.

This blog is started at 1:46pm on a Thursday, from Gotham Cafe in Wellington. Next to me are a bowl of fried, a ‘gormet’ toastie, and a Heineken. I decided to sit and relax instead of wander around aimlessly and potentially cause anxiety flares. I am in a safe environment, close to the person I will be staying with on this trip, and just relaxing.

I’ll admit, it is rather peculiar sitting in a cafe by myself with food and my thoughts, so here I am.

Since last time I wrote a fair amount has happened, so i will go through what I can remember. When I left off last I was on my way to meet my Ouma.
We had planned to meet at the domestic terminal, but because I arrived early I decided to surprise her at the international arrivals gate. When she arrived her face lit up, and we made our way to each other, at which point we embraced for an extended hug in silence. As we pulled away the first thing she said to me was “You’ve lost weight”. This planted an anxiety seed inside about whether I had lost THAT much weight that it was noticable after 4 years of not seeing someone. In my head I tried to calm by telling myself that since last time we saw each other I had no facial hair, and my normal colour hair, so maybe it’s just something that she was mistaken about. The more I thought about it I realised that since the last time she saw me it has ben 4 YEARS, so the she has been holding onto the image of 21 year old James who is vastly different to 25 year old James that she was seeing now.
My ouma was always the ‘mean’ grandmother as she was super strict and always seemed to disapprove of everything that we did or said. 4 years ago she was quite different to what I remembered, and even this time she was even more relaxed than last time.
Anticipating only spending an hour or two with her, imagine my surprise when 6 hours later I was finally heading home. I told here everything about me and what I had been doing, basically re-intriducing myself to her. She listened carefully and when I made comments about how silly I was makiong this mistake, or doing that thing, she smiled and responded saying that they are part of growing up. The biggest surprise came for me when I had told her that I had quite smoking, and had been 2 months smoke free. Inner child James expected a disapproving look and a clip around the ear, but instead I was greeted with a giggle and her saying “You obviously forgot that I smoked for 12 years”. This conversation led onto my eating issues and anxiety, then onto my other Nana who is in hospital at the moment. She ended up sending me away so I would have rest time before Friday night of whatever happened on the last night of being 24.

Next I will move onto my birthday. Normally I chose not to do anything, but this year I planned to go to an attraction in town where they lock you in a room and you have to solve clues to get out. I went with 5 close friends and had a blast. In the evening we drunk and ordered pizza, and just chilled.

This trip to Wellington is mainly to see my Nana who is in hospital, so since I saw my Ouma she had blood fill her lungs, and one stopped functioning. The difficulty with this situation is that I have one avenue of trying to find out which hospital she is in as there is no one else that I could ask. So I will attempt to find out and visit her on Saturday.

I have also had the great luck of my permanent retainer snapping, so this trip to Wellington I have to decide between $70 to remove, or $440 to replace. This will ultimately be decided by whether the orthodontist will allow a payment plan or not. For now, I am going to find a massage.

The feelings of fear ignighted anxiety have settled themselves in comfortably.

Currently sitting on a train on the way to a situation that I would never have thought I would put myself in again. Due to the Christmas period being right around the corner, I had expected that it would be a chilled out Christmas with my Build-A-Family, until I received an email from my Ouma (who currently lives in Scotland). She flies in to Auckland today and wanted to see me at the airport for the day before she flies to Wellington.

At the time of this information coming through I was a content James, chugging through and felt like I was in an alright position to break the standard mold and spend the day with her. Since then it has been the lead up to my birthday which is always stressful and upsetting. Generally I don’t do much for my birthday, so hadn’t realised that the day Ouma flew in happened to be the day before my birthday. The closer it came to today the more stressed I became, and was at serious ‘bail from everything mode’ this morning which cause me to almost oversleep, and question whether to even get out of bed.

With all the progress I have made recently, I feel like if I don’t do go and see my Ouma that I haven’t seen in 4 years, everything will have been in vain and I will revert right back to the old me that wouldn’t do anything or go anywhere.

There are many things to despise about anxiety, but the one that bugs me the most is when everything seems to be going well and you are chugging along with a smile, and one thing happens that spirals everything way back down into the well that you have just fought to get out of.

For me right now, that one thing is something that is not only anxiety inducing, but also frightening beyond all measures. I am chugging along in life, we have a new puppy, I have been sorting out the work stress to a point where it isn’t exactly comfortable, but manageable, I am getting back into craft for enjoyment, and then I find out that my Nana has taken a fall and ended up with multiple broken ribs, a spinal fracture, and split her head open. She is currently in ICU.

I have never had a great relationship with anyone in my family, but my Nana is the one who has been the most kind and most like family to me.
The thought of losing the one person that I still consider as close family is petrifying for me.

While I know I am not alone with a beautiful support network around me, as well as a family that I have created, the possibility of losing the last biological family that I have anything to do with leaves me feeling VERY alone.
There are people I know I can talk to, and know will give me cuddles if I want or need them, but this is something that makes me feel isolated and like I just want to run and not come back.

Knowing my inner anxiety beast, I know that there are things that I need to do to ensure that I don’t completely spiral out of control and end up in a very bad place. It was commented to me by a couple of my friends that this blog is used when anxiety is bad, and that it has become an outlet when things are too much, and I can see this. For the most part since my last post things have been good. The beast has been under control and I have made leaps in the right direction for self acceptance and self confidence.

There have been more changes announced in the saga that is my work life, resulting in a second ‘redundancy’ in the last 6 months. The annoying this about this is the fact that while it is annoying and frustrating for me, I can see where the changes are coming from in terms of an organisational point of view, and they will make things better from a customers point of view. It will, however, result in me hating and having zero interest in a third of my job, with no control over this. After speaking with the manager of the team I was in for the business sector, there is a role coming up early next year that he would like me to apply for. The advantage of this is that I know the job, I know the company, and I know the people, and a new manager for that team. So this may be a good choice for me in terms of solidifying my feeling of security in my role.

I was relocated to the central city offices last week and the office dynamic here works so much better for the way I work best, but the business role is based back on the North Shore. I have many thinkings to do about this, but thankfully this can happen after Christmas as I am based in an office closer to home with a better office dynamic, and still in my current role.

In other news, things are moving slowly with a new potential, and right now that works perfectly for me. He is kind and caring, and very happy, so we shall see how this goes.

Now that the majority of my issues are written out I shall leave this here.